Rove Investigator Faces Own Allegations

April 24, 2007
Rove Investigator Faces Own Allegations

But government watchdogs have accused (Scott) Bloch himself of similar behavior. In April 2005, they and others complained the White House appointee had allowed his office to "sit on" a complaint that then-White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice used government funds to travel in support of President Bush's re-election bid.

By contrast, they said, Bloch ordered an immediate on-site investigation of a complaint that Bush's challenger for the White House, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., improperly campaigned in a government workplace, which had been filed around the same time.

In late 2005, the White House-run President's Committee on Integrity and Efficiency opened an investigation into that charge and several others, including accusations that Bloch's office retaliated against employees who took issue with internal policies and discriminated against employees who were gay or members of religious minorities. The investigation is pending.

Those charges led the left-leaning group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington to charge that Bloch is "the wrong choice" to investigate. In addition to probing Hatch Act violations, OSC is also responsible for defending the rights of government whistle-blowers and protecting government employees from discrimination and other prohibited practices.